Whitman, Campbell oppose effort to bar indy voters from GOP primary

Two of the three major California GOP gubernatorial candidates — Tom Campbell and Meg Whitman — oppose the proposal by leaders of the state Republican Party to bar independent voters from casting a ballot in the 2010 GOP primary, their campaigns have told the Chronicle today.

With the controversial issue heating up — and about to go before GOP delegates at next month’s statewide party convention — the Chronicle asked the current crop of GOP gubernatorial candidates to weigh in.

Two of the candidates have indicated they oppose the idea — and one won’t take a stand.

“There are strong arguments from proponents on both sides of this debate and I look forward to continuing to hear from supporters on each side. Ultimately, it’s a decision that the party as a whole will decide and the bottom line is that we need to strengthen and grow the Republican party….I want the Republican Party to be the majority party in California and that’s why I’ve sponsored our bounty programs to register more Republicans across the state.”

(We asked Poizner spokesman Jarrod Agen to translate — so what’s his position? He doesn’t have one. Official answer: “He is going to hear out both sides over the coming weeks.”)

*Former EBay CEO Meg Whitman: “Meg believes it is beneficial for the party to continue to encourage decline to state voters to support Republican candidates and cast a ballot in the Republican primary election. She is committed to growing the Republican Party and will attract Californians with her plans to create jobs, cut spending, and fix education.” – Whitman campaign spokeswoman Sarah Pompei

*Former San Jose Rep. Tom Campbell: “I believe that we should be reaching out to voters of all parties and encouraging them to vote Republican. I believe that allowing decline to state voters to vote in our statewide primary elections sends a strong message to them that we value their vote as well in the general election. So I would oppose efforts to prevent them from voting Republican if they wish to.”

The effort to bar the state’s decline-to-state voters, who make up one in five of the California electorate, from casting a GOP ballot in primary elections — which would include for the governor, the U.S. Senate and legislative races — has been lead by Flashreport.org publisher Jon Fleischman, the Republican Party Southern California vice chair. As he wrote in a blog this week, the proposal — which he believes will strengthen the party and encourage some indies to register GOP — will be put before GOP delegates at the upcoming California Republican convention at Indian Wells in September.

Fleischman predicts the positions of GOP gubernatorial candidates on the matter will most certainly matter to grassroots activists.

“I hope if someone wants to be the standard bearer for the Republican Party, they would believe the choosing of a nominee should be the work of Republicans,” he told us last week. “If they don’t agree with that, it could be a campaign issue.”

Not all GOPers agree: State Senator Abel Maldonado told us this week it is “suicidal” for the Republican Party in California to consider such a move to bar 20 percent of state voters from the GOP primary ballot.

And other big names in the party have privately warned us a “bloody battle” will take place at the convention over this idea next month.

Now that the candidates have weighed in — at least some of them — we’ll see how much of a campaign issue it becomes.